Oregon Militiamen if They Were Muslim

People saying if the Oregon militiamen were Muslim, they would have been killed by now. Sure, that would be Day 1.

On Day 2, “terrorism experts” would be all over the news to tell us how serious the threat of “radical Islam” is and how if the government doesn’t take action now, we are all going to die.

Day 3, Trump and other presidential candidates would try to outdo each other with over-the-top proposals on how to profile Muslims and if we don’t enact or expand all kinds of disturbingly racist policies, we are all going to die.

Day 4, lawmakers would propose new legislation to curb civil rights and the right to privacy in the name of security, arguing that if the government doesn’t have the right to read every single person’s email and listen in on everyone’s phone calls, we are all going to die.

Day 5, the TSA would install new and “improved” body scanners at all airports and force travelers to throw away their Q-tips and toothbrushes because without heightened security, we are all going to die.

Day 6, Obama would hold a press conference about how the threat of ISIS is real and that “no option is off the table,” including more military “intervention” in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, NW Pakistan, etc., all but outright stating that if we don’t blow up more people in other parts of the world, we are all going to die.

Day 7, mosques around the country would get vandalized with various cuts of pork, Oregon militiamen, ironically, and other bigots around the country would protest outside their local mosques brandishing assault rifles and shouting “F*** Islam!”, dozens of Muslim women and Sikh men would get assaulted, a few mosques would actually get burned to the ground, because if millions of American Muslims don’t live in constant fear, we are all going to die.

Day 8, the panic would start to settle and everyone would go on with their lives seemingly unaware of and unconcerned about how many of their rights and how much of their collective humanity had been stripped. Real societal problems affecting millions of people — like poverty, hunger, the wealth gap, education, unemployment, housing, institutional racism, etc. — would continue to be ignored by national media and fail to register in the public discourse at large since, by now, the public would firmly believe that it is not due to these deep existential problems but by the actions of handful of brown criminals that we are all going to die.

People saying if the Oregon militiamen were Muslim, they would have been killed by now. Sure, that would be Day 1. On…